


The Confluence of Fate

by luinel (geekns)



Series: Confluence [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Chameleon Arch, F/M, Mind Wipe Fix-it, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-01
Updated: 2010-02-21
Packaged: 2018-12-25 14:58:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12038319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geekns/pseuds/luinel
Summary: What exactly did the Doctor mean when he said that he was going “To get my reward”? Why was Wilf seeing that Woman, and how did the Doctor recognize her?  What happened to the Master when Gallifrey was banished?  The Doctor's interaction with the Noble family is far from over, in fact, it's about to get a lot more complicated. A post-the End of Time fix-it.





	1. Doctor's POV

**Author's Note:**

> The Doctor and Donna don't belong to me, but it's not like Russel T. Davies knew what he was doing (sorry, can you tell that i'm bitter about the Temple Noble wedding?).

_after the radiation venting, before the return to the Tardis_  
  
It was as if time had slowed to a crawl.  He could see it all laid out before himself, like a series of steps in a garden, but it was so much more complicated than that.  Some things were hidden, some parts of the equation were missing, and yet it was all so close that he could nearly taste it.  He would leave Wilf in Chiswick, and he would be off on his way again, running against a timer.  He knows what to do now, has known it all from the moment that he saw the Woman:  there was so much written on her face.  He doesn't have much time; never enough time.  He is always running, and now the way to set things right, to ensure that everything that had happened will happen again, and in the right way, it is all hanging on this precious moment, the last refrain in the song of DoctorDonna.  
  
Wilf is eager to get home to Donna, he can understand that, but for him it is just another portent that he is running away from Donna, possibly for forever.  What if that afternoon in the cafe was the last time he will ever see her?  He does not know for certain that he will be able to succeed, that he will be able to right the tangles before he is regenerated or before it is too late.  But there's nothing for it, he must go on, he must persevere or cease to be himself, and so the Doctor picks up the White Star off the floor, careful not to cut his fingers on the twisted metal and shattered glass that lays strewn about.  He leads Wilf on the way back to his Tardis, brings her back into sync with himself, and then sets off on his last adventure.  
  
  
  
_a convent in London, sometime during the 14th century_  
  
The night was cold, and the stars were out full bright, when something fell out of the sky.  At first they thought that it was a star, but then it descended with fire into earth and was revealed to be a demon, a body twisted in pain and laughing maniacally.  It often flashed a crazed visage of bones, and lightning leaked from its hands.  Some women ran, others fell on their faces and prayed for mercy from God, and some nearly died.  
  
And then a blue box appeared.  A man clad in brown stepped out, and his face was shining like the stars for a moment, but then the light was damped.  He held the twisted madman and comforted him as if he were a small boy, screaming against nightmares.  Then he took up the demon in his arms and carried him back to his box.  Only one woman had the bravery to speak to this angel before he vanished forever, to ask him who he was and why he cried.  The man only said three words:  
  
“I'm the Doctor.”  
  
  
  
_Mandatory Palestine, 1948_  
  
Private Wilfred Mott was lying on a roof in Palestine when a blue box appeared.  The boy is barely a man and is dying, a bullet wound to his neck bleeding profusely.  Once again, a lone man steps out of the box, walking towards the dying boy, disregarding the bullets that are raining about him, the fire that is quickly taking hold of the building.  He kneels and sighs, taking the young man's face in his hands, and absorbs everything from him:  his memories, his pain, his fear.  Mott falls unconscious in his arms, his last few labored breaths leaking from him, and dies, the slightest smile on his face.  The Doctor lays him down gently, and then starts to remove the boy's uniform, tears running down his face.  So much war, so much bloodshed, and so little that he can do about it.  There's not enough time for him to help here.  
  
So the Doctor returns to his Tardis, the clothing in hand, and leaves the boy's body to succumb to the fire, his ashes to be scattered on the wind and be free.  The Doctor closes the doors to shut out the angry flames and gunfire, then kneels over his weeping friend, the madman who is naked, his skin torn open and bleeding.  
  
“It won't be long now,” the demon cackles.  The Doctor doesn't respond, he merely starts to dress the man that is like a brother to him with as much care as he can. After he finishes, he resumes his modifications on the machine before him, his sonic screwdriver humming periodically.  "You cannot fight it,” the Master mocks. The Doctor continues his work:   
  
“I know, I tried before...” he drifts off, glancing at the man beside him.  “Ironic, how now I don't want to go at all, when last time it was because I didn't want to live.”  His voice faltered:  “So much pain...”  The Master shudders on the floor, his breath coming in short gasps now, his bypass no longer working, his hearts failing.  
  
“What are you doing to me?” he asks.  The Doctor lays a hand on his shoulder in comfort:  
  
“I told you, I can help.”  The demon laughs for the last time:  
  
“You can't even help yourself.”  The Doctor stares down at him soberly, swallows against the white hot pain that is slowly consuming him:  
  
“But I can help you,” he responds softly, his voice full of promise.  He turns away for a moment, locking Donna's abandoned bridal wristwatch into the Chameleon Arch, having finished the last of the necessary adjustments.  Then the Doctor kneels down, slides the helmet onto the Master's head, just as yellow light streams from every pore of the demon's body.  The Doctor sits back on his heels, just out of reach, and pushes the button.  The arch activates, and the Master screams with the pain of it, sitting halfway up, features contorted in pain as his face finishes changing into one that is identical to that of the recently perished Private Mott.  As the yellow light dissipates, the Doctor dashes forward, placing both of his hands on either side of the Master's face, and pours memories into his long lost friend.  
  
  
A young man looking exactly like Wilfred Mott awakes in a tent hospital, on a cot, every pore in his body tingling.   _Such a relief, the silence; no more..._  but the thought drifts away from him, never to be consciously remembered again.  A man is standing over him, his features hidden in the dark.  
  
“Do I know you?” he feels a twinge of fear.  
  
“Oh yes,” the man responds.  “Someday...” he drifts off.  “Someday you will have a granddaughter, and she will be the light of your glorious life,” the man starts to turn, then pauses, his profile suddenly a silhouette, all large nose and crazy hair.  “Take care of her for me, will you, Wilf?”  
  
It takes a moment for the young man to realize that Wilf is his own name.  The more he stares at this man, the stranger he feels, the more in awe.  Something catches in his throat, as if he wants to cry, not for himself, but for the gentleman before him:  
  
“I will,” he responds.  He lifts his right hand, without even thinking, in salute, but the man in brown has already turned, walking away in silence, his shoulders slumped in fatigue.  He brushes aside the tent flap and slowly disappears, melting into the darkness.  
  
  
__  
Temple Noble wedding, Spring, 2010  
  
The bells are ringing merrily, the sun shining bright, and both of his hearts are breaking.  He could not bear to go inside, for had he done so he would have lost control of himself, he would have been too close, he would have had to cry out, to object.  The doors to the church are opening now, and a little girl runs out, her strawberry blonde hair streaming out behind her, the bride immediately behind.  A photo is taken of her straight off, Donna screaming in glorious happiness, and then the girl skips away.  Even as Sylvia and Wilf see him, speak with him, he can not keep his eyes off the beautiful bride.  This is all the goodbye he will get; he doesn't have long now, he can feel it.  But as the Doctor turns to go, the flower girl steps between him and the Tardis.  
  
“Hello there!” he greets her with far more cheer than he actually feels:  it won't do at all to scare off the girl and raise an alarm, better to chat with her for a moment and send her back to her parents without any trauma.  “Who are you?” he asks with a smile, “Are your parents...?”  
  
“I thought it was you!” she interrupts. “And this must be the Tardis!”  She has turned to face the blue box now, and presses her hand against the side, caressing the blue paneling.  
  
"What did you say?" he asks warily.  Her eyes have now lifted to read the white sign that is above her head.  
  
“I thought it shouldn't say Bad Wolf!” she gasps.  “Why does mum remember it wrong?”  
  
The girl turns to face him, her brown eyes piercing him to his hearts, their depth and grief and joy and knowledge vast beyond what her apparent age of six or seven should convey.  The Doctor falls to his knees before her, his mouth falling open, not even sure what question to ask first. "She named me Rose," she explains, stepping closer to him, and places one hand on each side of his face.  
  
“How?” he asks aloud, and then he is drowning in memories.  
  
“All I see is yellow light,” Rose tells him, as she pours into him her first memory, her creation occurring at the moment of the metacrisis.  This is followed by a quick succession of flashes, all of Donna's memories playing backwards, pressed together like the pages in a book just as when he hid them all in the back of Donna's mind so she wouldn't remember them anymore.  “Mummy keeps forgetting, and forgetting, over and over again, every single day she forgets, and somehow I cannot stop remembering.”  The memories suddenly unfurl, and fastforward through his mind in a nauseating explosion of sensation and detail, every moment that he shared with Donna from her appearance in the Tardis until the moment she begged him not to make her forget.  And suddenly he is back on his knees in front of Rose, gasping for air, and the girl before him is wiping tears off his face with the sash of her dress.  
  
“I'm sorry, I didn't know,” he gasps out.  It sounds so slight of a thing, to apologize to the girl that he now realizes is his daughter, when he has missed her entire life.  But Rose merely regards him quietly as he hesitantly reaches out to her.  She does not seem to object, and suddenly he cannot help but touch every piece of her that his fingers can find, her wild ginger curls, her freckled—dark like his, not pale like her mum's—cheeks, her little button nose, her elfin ears, her ten perfect fingers, and then takes her face in his hands to brush at the edges of her mind with his own to make sure she is healthy and happy:  he wants to memorize this moment, to make it stretch into eternity itself, to never end.  He suddenly realizes that he's repeating the same two words over and over again—“I'm sorry,”—as if their repetition will make up for the fact that he's missed her entire life.  
  
“Please take me with you!” Rose begs suddenly.  The Doctor allows his hands to drop to his daughter's shoulders:  
  
“I can't,” he chokes out.  A single tear falls down her cheek:  
  
“Please,” she begs, her voice barely above a whisper.  “I know I'm small now, but I'm nearly two, and in another year I'll very nearly look like I'm twelve.”  
  
“I love you darling, I do, so so very much, but think about how your mummy would feel.”  She looks over his shoulder now, at her mother, who is already looking for her daughter among the wedding's guests.  “You know it would kill her, to not only lose all those happy memories, her life with me, but to lose the very thing she loves the most.”  Rose shakes her head emphatically:  
  
“But she doesn't love me the most,” she responds desperately, starting to crying even more.  “She loves you; she won't even look at me, Daddy.”  Both of the Doctor's hearts catch in his throat:  
  
“Of course she loves you, Rose,” he smooths her hair, and pulls out a handkerchief to wipe away her tears.  “Her love overflowed so very much that she couldn't help but have you.”  Her eyes filled with unshed tears:  
  
“Don't you love me?” He wraps his arms around her and hugs her tightly to himself:  
  
“I love you so much, baby...” and then his voice breaks.  “But your mother needs you, and I have to go away for a while.  Someday you'll understand, I promise:  good old grand-Wilf can tell you stories about me.”  He forces himself to let go of her, to stand up, but Rose catches his hand and stares, her tears suddenly dried up.  “I have to go,” he tells her.  
  
“You're going to die, aren't you?” she asks.  For a moment, he doesn't know what to say again.  Why is it that only his children can do this to him?  
  
“Yes, sweetheart, very, very soon,” he admits.  She wraps her arms around his waist and hangs on for dear life:  
  
“Will I ever see you again?” she whispers, as if she is afraid to ask aloud.  The Time Lord peers into his daughter's eyes and sees the paths of fate unfolding and shifting before his very eyes.  
  
“Yes, darling,” he assures her.  She takes a step away from him, and she turns to leave, gazing back at him until she is past the gate.  Donna is getting frantic now...  “Oh and Rose...”  She turns to look at him over her shoulder.  “Don't let your mum forget how brilliant she is,” he tells her, “and don't you ever forget how brilliant you are.”  The girl smiles at him then, and turns to run back to her mother, burying her face in her mum's neck as she is lifted into her mother's arms.  
  
  
  
_Wester Drumlins_  
  
The new and improved Doctor straightens his bow tie, then leans casually against the wall outside the the beautiful old house that he hasn't seen in... well, years.  He really, really shouldn't be going inside this particular house, particularly when he is still alone... companionless.  His own Tardis is safe enough, locked half a second out of sync with space time, but he has yet to figure out just why on earth the Tardis has brought him here of all places.  He had been aiming for a holiday in the Taiga, but as is sometimes her wont, the Tardis had decided that he needed to take a detour.  He was extremely puzzled as to why, usually he would have been thrust into some action by now, and as it's not likely that the owners of the empty car that is parked on the curb before him, engine cold and long since turned off, are in need of rescue, he's rather at a loss as to what he's meant to do next.  
  
A scream suddenly comes from the garden behind him.  He jumps, quashing the  doubt that he has just been pondering, and grins, deciding that it is time to do what he always does best:  run towards danger.  He sprints to the gate, pulls out his sonic screwdriver just as he is sliding to a stop before it, and opens the lock, just in time for who he takes to be a teenaged red headed girl to run straight into him and knock him onto his back.  
  
“Oi!” she screams, beating on his chest.  “Who are you, and what are you poking me with?!?”  The young woman pushes herself off of him, knocking his sonic screwdriver out of his hand in the process, and straightens her skirt, glancing over her shoulder and then turning to face the path she has just fled from, backing away from him and the gates, which are still open.  
  
“Hello,” he says, picking himself up, then brushing his clothes clean.  “I'm the Doctor, and you are?”  
  
“I'm Donna,” she says breathlessly, “and the statue in the garden just moved!”  
  
“Sorry, what did you say?” he asks.  She suddenly dashes forward and holds the gates closed, trying ineffectually to lock them.  
  
“This is the last time I listen to Nerys!” she retorts.  “No one is ever going to believe me!”   
  
“Leave that, it's not going to help, what year is it?” he bends to retrieve his screwdriver, tucking it back into his pocket.  
  
“What do you mean what year is it?” Donna screams at him.  “It's 1981!”  
  
  
  
_somewhere in the Time Vortex_  
  
The Doctor stares down at Donna, unable to resist at times like this, in the middle of the night, in between running out of one nightmare and into the next.  Somehow, in his past and her future, he had forgotten to notice how beautiful she was, had always thought of her as just a friend, when the more he thought about it the more he realized how blind he had been.  He had been so wrapped up in Rose that there hadn't been any room for her in his hearts, not really.  Now, as he stares down at her, he can see pieces of their daughter in her wavy hair, her chin, her toes.  Donna rolls onto her side, towards him, shivering slightly, her blanket falling off her shoulder, and he steps forward to cover her again.  
  
He cannot help but reach out and smooth her flaming hair, but then he forces himself to step back, to turn away, to go anywhere but here.  It is ironic really:  she used to run after him, hand in hand, but always following; now he follows her.  They went wherever she wanted.  He saved whoever she wanted to save.  He made sure that the monsters ran away so she would be safe.  Nothing can stop him from keeping her safe anymore... nothing.  But she stares right through him now.  Now he is the one in love, and she is the one who's oblivious.  Not that he can blame her:  she wants to get married, have children, settle down, and in her mind he cannot give her that.  Traveling with him is just a distraction in the meantime.  He wishes that he could tell her, that she'll never find anyone else, that she should just stay with him, but then the galaxy would tear apart.  
  
Back in the Control Room, the Tardis lands with a soft bump.  He sighs, and throws open the Tardis door.  It's Chiswick, at the first Noble residence that he ever visited, then just after the attack of the Racnoss empress, now just after another near brush with death that left the strands of time that had so firmly rebraided his life back into Donna Noble's feeling frayed and pulled too tight yet again.  Snow is falling, and Christmas music is pouring out of a nearby house as people leave a party across the road, its bubbly hope starkly antithetical to what he is feeling at the moment.  He discovers that he lights are out in the Noble home, and slips back into the Tardis, emotionally dragging his feet along the way.  
  
As much as it pains him, his time with her is up yet again, and it's time for Donna Noble to become the Super Temp that she has long been destined to become.  He is grateful for the years that they have had together, that she was able to put him back together again, but already his hearts are feeling heavy and uncomfortable as he returns to Donna's room, lifts her easily off the bed, and carries her out of the Tardis into her bedroom in her parent's home, careful not to bump her along the way.  Once she's settled in her old bed, he returns for the suitcases that he packed earlier, and unpacks everything in her Chiswick bedroom, careful to put it all in the places she would have.  After traveling with Donna for so many years, there's not much about her that he doesn't know:  he almost feels as if they're an old married couple.  He sets that day's newspaper—with the temp agency advert circled and folded to face up—on her nightstand, then leans down with a sigh to place his hands on either side of her face.  
  
There's no screaming or begging this time.  The Doctor touches her mind gently, not wanting to rouse her, and is pleasantly surprised to find that she is dreaming about him.  They are running together, and she is laughing, and his shirt is half untucked, and they crash into an alley together.  He stares into her eyes one last time, and then he leans down to kiss her, trying not to cry as the world slowly unravels around her, and she forgets that he ever existed, again and yet for the first time.  
  
  
  
_Chiswick, 2012_  
  
It has been a long time since he had parked his Tardis on this street, in this place, but of course Donna does not live here anymore.  He locks the Tardis behind himself with a snap of his fingers, runs his fingers through his hair, and slinks across the darkness.  The sonic screwdriver lets him in easily enough, and Sylvia is snoring from her recliner, the telly on with the volume turned down, and no one is here awake to find him... or so he thinks.  As he slips into Wilf's room he comes face to face with his daughter, who is sitting in a chair next to the old man's bed.  She jumps up, and he is momentarily afraid that she will scream and wake the neighborhood, when suddenly she dashes forward and wraps her arms around him, squeezing him as if for dear life.  
  
“Oh, Daddy, I can hardly believe it's you,” she whispers.  He can feel her tears on his shoulder:  she is nearly full grown now, and he reckons that she is probably about the same height as her mother.  “Grandad is slipping away, then.”  
  
“Oh yes,” he intones soberly.  Traveling with Donna and seeing their family once again always keeps his tenth incarnation fresh in his mind.  He moves to sit in the chair that his Rose just left, and Wilf lifts his tired eyes.  
  
“Is that you, Doctor?” he asks quietly, his voice barely above a rasp:  long gone are his boisterous ways and easy laughter.  
  
“Sure is, old boy.”  
  
“I see you've met my light,” he says, his eyelids drooping.  “Tell me, Doctor, was that really you, in that tent so long ago?”  
  
“Yeah,” he responds glumly.  “It was.”  
  
“Was it after I fell from the sky?” he asks, his eyes staring blindly out the window, off into space.  “We flew so high and so fast, and the sun shon' so bright.”  The Doctor takes Donna's wedding watch from his pocket, and Wilf turns towards him abruptly.  “No!” he states emphatically.  
  
“But you'll die if you don't...”  
  
“I'll try,” Wilf responds.  “I've got to break my promise, haven't I?  Otherwise Gallifrey will come and my Star will go out.”  Wilf reaches out, and Rose slides her hand into his.  The Doctor's hearts are stuck in his throat for the first time in a long time.  
  
“Yes,” he rasps.  He buries his face in his hands.  “Yes, but I needed to know...”  
  
“If I remembered?” Wilf asks.  “Not until you came into this room.  All those coincidences, the way I was able to find you, it's because my nose is as good as yours.”  He lifts a hand to tap the side of his nose:  “The drums never haunted me again, you fixed that, you did.”  No one speaks for a long moment.  “And now I feel old,” he wheezes, “so old, and I finally see the universe as you always did.  My Star fixed me, just like your earth girls fixed you.”  Wilf coughs, and it shakes his entire frame.  “I've had a long life, nigh on a millennium now, and the last fifty years were the best I've ever had, so don't you dare bring the drums back!”  The Doctor nods soberly, then freezes when he hears the sound of the door opening behind him.  
  
“Gramps?” Donna's voice calls softly across the room.  “I thought I heard something.”  The Doctor jumps to his feet, wary, and Donna stares at him, completely flabbergasted.  “It's you,” she gasps.  
  
“What do you remember?” he asks abruptly, clutching the watch in his hand so tightly that the stones cut into his flesh painfully.  If she remembers his last incarnation...  
  
“I remember running from a stone angel,” she responds, her voice coming as if from far away.  “I remember waking up on Christmas morning and feeling like it was the worst day of my entire life.  I didn't even remember you until just now, and here you are, looking exactly the same.”  The Doctor relaxes, and thrusts his hands into his pockets.  She can only remember her first time with him, then, is safe because she doesn't remember his old face.  She walks up to him slowly, there's no warning at all, and suddenly her palm is flying towards his cheek, and it stings like nothing else.  Rose giggles.  
  
“What was that for?” he asks, holding his throbbing face.  
  
“That's for leaving me,” she responds.  “And this is for coming back,” Donna throws her arms around him then, and hugs him so tightly that his ribs hurt.  He folds his arms around her, allowing her alluring scent to wash over him.  Donna inhales sharply, and pulls away abruptly, question in her eyes.  “Why are you here?”  
  
“There's something this bloke wants you to have,” Wilf says quietly from where he lays alone.  “Give it to her, Doctor.”  The Doctor pulls his hand back out of his pocket, and the silver watch gleams on his palm in the moonlight.  
  
“Thanks,” Donna says distractedly, and she puts the watch into her own pocket without even looking at it.  “How are you feeling, Grandad?” she asks.  
  
“It's time for Rose to go with him,” Wilf said.  “Promise me.”  
  
“What?” Donna asks, moving to sit on the edge of the bed.  
  
“I know it's hard, love, but look at her,” Wilf's eyes suddenly look wet.  “My Star is almost grown up.  She needs her D...octor to help her become the woman she needs to be.”  
  
“Bit like Peter Pan, innit?” Donna frowns as she turns to face her daughter, and then her face screws up in confusion.  “Rose, I never noticed, but your eyes...”  The girl turns to face her father, who is still standing behind Donna, and in the same moment, Wilf laughs.  “What is it, Gramps?” Donna asks, her previous thought already forgotten.  
  
“You'll thank me one day, love,” Wilf responded.  “I love you all.”  
  
“No,” Rose cries, falling to her knees and wrapping her great-grandfather into her arms.  
  
“I don't know how you can all love me, I really don't,” Wilf rasps out as the Doctor moves to take his hand.  “I fell so far...” and then the Master was gone, having finally found peace.  
  
  
  
_London, 2016_  
  
He hadn't meant to run into her here.  He had dropped off their Rose at home earlier today, with her hoping to visit her mum, and he decided to drop in on Martha and Mickey for a visit only to find that they had divorced.  He certainly didn't expect to see Donna leaving the very same hospital that Martha works at.  She doesn't see him, she is distracted, and walks on, lifting her mobile to her ear:  
  
“Mum, do you need anything for dinner?  Cos' I'm on my way home.”  She starts to cross the street, just glancing to make sure no traffic is coming, turns the other way, and suddenly an ambulance barrels around the corner.  She sees it, but stumbles, and he watches horrified as she falls.  He is running, running, it cannot end like this, and she is scrambling to her feet, but there isn't time.  Suddenly he is behind her, and he shoves her hard, and she goes flying forward, but now the Doctor is in front of the ambulance.  The vehicle hits him, and he is thrown across the hood and pinned to the vehicle as it hits a streetlamp.


	2. Donna's POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor and Donna work out some kinks in their relationship (but, of course, never all of them), and things finally come full circle.

_London, 2016: just outside a hospital_  
  
The world is moving in slow motion, but it is still too fast for Donna Noble to even react. Her body is sluggish and doesn't react as well as it once did. She has finally reached her feet, but a part of her knows that it is hopeless, that there is no use in even fighting anymore, and suddenly it is as if time has stopped. Her life should be flashing before her eyes, shouldn't it? But it isn't: instead she has an overwhelming sense of deja vu, and her mind has traveled to somewhere completely different, to another road that is more vivid to her than the one she is stumbling across in this eternal moment of terror. In her mind's eye she is staring at a funny looking watch and wailing ineffectually at the sky. She is out of breath, but part of her is very calm, and clear, and certain. She turns to look at the truck that is approaching, that has almost reached the stretch of kerb she is standing on. She utters one word, just one word: “ _Please_ ,” and Donna Noble takes a step forward...  
  
She is ripped free of the frozen moment in time as something slams into her from behind, knocking her forward onto pavement. Her breath is knocked out of her, her chest protesting at the two collisions that have just occurred, and she cowers in fear as she hears the sound of tyres squealing on blacktop and a tremendous crash that sounds of metal on metal. The pain in Donna's body is barely beginning to recede enough for her to be able to think clearly again, but even though she is starting to realize that she is still alive and reasonably unscathed, there is a sense of dread that she feels in her bones, almost as if a part of her is dying. She stumbles to her feet and turns to find a bumper crumpled against metal and flesh, radiator steaming, not so very far away. Too close. Recognition surges through her, and once again the world fades around her to acutely focus on the needs of the man before her.  
  
She is on her feet and stumbling towards the Doctor before her body has even fully comprehended the new pains that her egress has caused. It is only registering dimly in her mind that she has lost a shoe, that her chin and palms are scraped and bleeding from where they hit the ground the first time she fell, and her chest is painfully tight, which is making it difficult for her to breathe. She only has enough presence of mind to focus on the man she loves as she stumbles towards the nightmare that they have fallen into. She takes hold of the Doctor's arm, then lets go, afraid to hurt him further. He is lying across the bonnet of the car, his eyes locked on her face, his breathing labored. She blankly notices that someone nearby is screaming; at first it sounds as if the tortured sound is coming from far away, but the noise gradually raises in volume to an earsplitting cacophony, and with a start she realizes that she is the one ineffectually screaming bloody murder.  
  
“Ma'am, can you please just stand back?” a man is imploring her.  
  
“Back it up off him!!!” she commands him, using her body to shield the Doctor from him. Every cell in her body is aware that this man, whose uniform is meant to engender a sense of safety, is one of the people who caused this. He and his coworker have left the cab of their vehicle and are now at a loss of how to get around her in order to do their job.  
  
“We can't do that, we have to assess the damage...” he pleads with her. His partner is starting to approach the Doctor from behind her, and she turns to point at him.  
  
“Back this car up  _right now_  or  _so help me_!!!” He takes a step back in surprise, but does not move to comply, so Donna launches herself over the bonnet at him, desperate to do anything to inflict pain upon this man who has injured the Doctor, and is only vaguely aware that his mate is very soon trying to hold her down.  
  
Everything is chaos as she starts hitting him over the head with her handbag. There is some random yelling of “Please” and “Stop it!” and “Geroff” and “Help,” but Donna is beyond being able to hear any of it. She is so angry and scared that all she can hear is the sound of the blood pounding in her ears.  
  
“Don't tell me to stop it, you idiots!” she bolts towards the cab and climbs in, shrugging off her sweater when they grab at it in an attempt to pull her back out. The keys are still in the ignition. It takes her three tries to get the van to start, and all the while they're still trying to stop her, but she just slaps them every time they get too close. She backs the ambulance up just enough for the Doctor to crumple on the ground, and then she is at his side again, motor still running, cars honking because the ambulance is now parked diagonally in both lanes and blocking all traffic. The men gape at her as she dashes past them and back to the Doctor's side: “Where's the Tardis?” she asks him.  
  
“Alley,” he gasps, one hand twitching in an attempt to point. She lifts him off the ground enough to sling his arms over her shoulders, then tries to straighten and drag him along. He is limp against her, and suddenly she's afraid that he cannot help at all, that he has been paralyzed. She tries to run—pulling him along, his feet dragging, shoes scuffing—but she is only capable of a slow limping gate. She finds the Tardis a block over. It seems to take them forever to reach it, and when they do it is locked and he's drifting out of consciousness. Donna stares at it for about five seconds before she realizes what she needs to do next.  
  
“Don't you dare give up on me now, you great big lump of nothing,” she orders him as she fumbles with the necklace that she never takes off—a feat which is awkward with the Doctor hanging off her and her frame compressed under the weight of him—and yanks out the key that had been resting between her breasts on a chain for as long as she can remember. She's never known why, only that it felt wrong to take it off. A few moments later, and the old girl is opening for her. She pulls him inside, easing him onto the floor as gently as she can manage, cradling his head in her lap and trying to assess the damage. “What do I do, Doctor?” she beseeches. She is absolutely terrified: he has turned deathly pale and blood is everywhere and she's not even sure that he can talk at this point.  
  
“Donna,” he moans, his voice barely above a whisper. “You have to leave.”  
  
“Oi, is that all the thanks I get for trying to save your life?” she gripes. She stands abruptly, looking around for any clue as to what she should do next. Isn't there a medical bay somewhere in this box of bolts? The Console Room somehow looks different than she had remembered, which makes no sense because it is exactly as she had remembered.  
  
“You'll burn,” he mumbles, nearly incoherent. She runs to the console, but there are so many buttons, and she doesn't remember how to use any of it. She finally finds one button that has a bit of English written next to it in faded marker that might have once been black. It looks like it says:  **Fast Return**. She vaguely seems to recall the Doctor telling her to push this button if he was ever killed. She presses the button.  
  
The Tardis suddenly comes to life, its time rotor glowing and starting to ascend and descend rhythmically. And then a sound began to pulse through Donna, almost as if it is part of her, a cacophony akin to ancient computers beeping and rended metal folding and unfolding back on itself, then gradually receding to a hum. Donna could not understand what was happening to her, why her head was suddenly pounding, the room swimming, nor why she felt overwhelmingly nauseated. She was gripping the console tightly, bending over with the pain of it, and was not surprised to feel tears falling off her cheeks onto her hands. A couple of drops fell on the console itself, sending sparks skittering across the surface. She staggered backwards, her hands instinctively lifting to tangle in the hair at her temples:  
  
“Doctor!” She turns to face him, but could not even make out his features through her tears and spinning vision. “What's happening to me???” She felt as if she was about to pass out, but she steadied herself against the console, holding on for dear life as she spun through time and space, suspended for one last heartbeat, and then the universe begins to spin about her again, faster and faster. Memories washed over her, not only her own, but those belonging to the Doctor, until the Tardis touched down with a slight bump, jarring her, and everything powered back down, leaving her mind alive. “Why did you do it?” she asked numbly.  
  
“What?” he asked softly. She managed to stumble back to the Doctor's limp form, tripping over a rubber mallet and landing on her knees beside him.  
  
“You keep using up your lives, throwing them away like spent tea bags, what did you go and jump in front of that ambulance for?” she beat on his chest ineffectually, and he didn't even try to stop her. He probably  _couldn't_  stop her, she realized. “Don't you know, I'm not worth it... Besides, it's already too late...”  
  
“What?!?”  
  
“I have cancer,” she responded. “Or something very nearly like it, I'm not long for this life.” She loosened his bow tie and fiddled with his hair, trying to tame it with her fingers. She laughs mirthlessly: “I don't even know what got me in the end... was it the huon particles? The residual energy from the metacrisis?”  
  
“No,” he breathed, his voice filled with agony.  
  
“Why did you take it all away? Didn't you know that I would have rather died? We were supposed to be together forever, I loved you!” She gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. The Doctor reached up one hand to touch her face:  
  
“Oh, my Donna,” he breathed.  
  
“I love you,” she repeated. “I love you, you big idiot.” She leaned down to kiss him, and then he started to glow for just a moment. “No, not again!” she ordered him. “Don't you die on me now, you hear me?” The door to the Tardis flew open suddenly, and she jumped. Rose was running in full tilt, fell to her knees in front of Donna.  
  
“No, Daddy!” she screamed. Donna looked at her daughter, really looked at her for the first time in longer than she can remember, and suddenly she realized. Her daughter had eyes that are brown, her pale skin is covered with freckles far darker than her own, and she's so much thinner than Donna had ever had a hope of being.  
  
“Rosie, my Rose,” she cried, and she reached for her. “I couldn't look at you before, I couldn't see your father in you, because then I would have forgotten, or burned up, but you're so beautiful.” And then Donna's head suddenly felt as if it's about to explode, as if it's on fire. She held her head in her hands and keened with the pain of it.  
  
“Where's the watch?” the Doctor asked, his voice filled with urgency. He tried to prop himself up, but Rose had to help him.  
  
“What watch?” Donna asked.  
  
“The one I gave you when Wilf died.” Tears streamed from Donna's eyes as she turned to reach for her handbag. She doesn't know when she started carrying it, but somehow the watch always found its way back inside. It's as if it jumps into her hand when she reaches in to pull the piece of jewelry out, and she tried to hand it to him. “Donna, look at it!”  
  
“It's just an old watch,” she mumbled. “Why did you give me something broken like that?”  
  
“It's not broken, Donna, look at it!” He thrust the watch into her hands: “You were wearing it the day we met for the first time, do you remember?” he asked. Donna dropped her gaze, and he took her hands in his own. She could feel her face scrunch up in confusion, pondering this: did he mean how she met him, or how he met her? “With this ring...”  
  
“...I thee biodamp,” they finish together.  
  
“For better or for worse,” he affirms.  
  
Donna truly looked at the watch for the first time in four years, and suddenly it came to life in her hands. The face was glowing with its own light, which reflected off the detailing on the band. Inside there were whispers, a voice not her own, calling to her, telling her secrets that were terrifying and incredible. “Open it, Donna,” he begged, even as the yellow light was starting to overtake him. “Open it.”  
  
Donna pressed the button on the side of the watch, and the face flipped open, revealing the intricate gears and cogs that have been fitted inside a space that is far too small on the outside for all the majesty that was locked inside. There, in the bottom, glowed the White Star, and Donna lost herself in it, and in that moment all of Time and Space unfolded around her, then popped back like a rubber band stretched too tight. Donna Noble threw back her head, and for the last time in her life she screamed.  
  
  
  
Before she could even see straight again, she could feel his arms around her, supporting her. The Tardis thrummed about her, welcoming her, singing in joy, whispering in words too fast for her to understand. It all folded in on itself, creating a cacophony that was strangely soothing and comforting. She was home.  
  
The arms around her loosened, but hands held her upright, and the first thing Donna saw was a man with blond hair that was only slightly shorter than it had been moments ago. He looked older, and taller, and thinner, serious, and slightly sinister until a wide grin broke over his features.  
  
“Am I ginger?” he asked. His voice was deep and gravelly.  
  
“No,” she confessed. He frowned again, and she no longer wondered that River had once said that a look from her Doctor could make armies turn tail. She shuddered, and lifted her hands to her forehead, but it felt odd, so she dropped her hands again. He let go of her, and took half a step back, but smiled again.  
  
“Neither are you,” he said with a voice that was oddly deep compared to the two incarnations of the Doctor she had been familiar with up to this point.  
  
“What's going on in here?” a voice suddenly came from outside, a very familiar one, and Donna and the Doctor both turned in horror to see Sylvia step inside the Tardis. “Oh, my,” she said, looking around, perplexed. “It's very big in here, what a load of nonsense.” She came up the stairs but stopped quite a distance from them, crossing her arms. “Rose, darling, aren't you going to introduce me to your friends?” Rose looked to her parents for help.  
  
“What did you do?” Donna asked, turning to the Doctor. “My own mum doesn't recognize me!!!”  
  
"Forgive me for trying to save your life," he replied with a voice dripping with sarcasm.  
  
“I beg your pardon?” Sylvia scoffed.  
  
“Nan,” Rose said in a small voice, “These are my parents.” All the blood drained from Sylvia's face. “They've just regenerated, but this is the Doctor, and this is your daughter, Donna.” With that, Sylvia promptly collapsed.  
  
  
  
_Barcelona, 5006_  
  
“I've always known this would be a brilliant place to take a holiday,” the Doctor hopped around brightly, which looked rather ridiculous because he looked a good deal older than his last two incarnations, firmly past middle aged. Donna still could not get over the fact that she had regenerated into a woman that looked older than she had been as a human. Oh, she was far from ugly: she was rather pleased by the fact that she could fit into jeans that were a couple of sizes smaller, for instance, and it was pleasant enough being an inch and a half taller, but she was already getting gray in her long, dark hair. Rose ran up suddenly, a chocolate croissant in hand, and offered her a bite.  
  
“Is it all right if we go sunbathing?” Rose asked, beaming, her nose already getting pink.  
  
“Darling, just because your father and I can't get freckles anymore doesn't mean you can't,” Donna chided her gently, stroking her daughter's hair.  
  
“I know, but I'm getting a bit pale, Mum: unlike you, I happen to like my freckles.” Donna sighed:  
  
“All right, but you better wear sunscreen, and don't expect any sympathy from me if you're burnt to a crisp this evening.”  
  
“Thanks, mum,” Rose pressed the croissant into her mother's hand, then dashed into the Tardis, only to emerge moments later with a beach bag.  
  
“Fancy a walk?” the Doctor asked in his low drawl, still bouncing about. “The beaches here are lovely, not to mention La Rambla Nueva, here.” He tried to snag a bite of the delicious pastry that she was holding, but Donna wasn't about to let him get his hands on any more sugar.  
  
“All right, then, space man,” she stated affectionately. She dipped her hand into the pocket of her duster, pulled out a parasol, and opened it up, taking his arm: “lead on.”  
  
They walked in relative silence for a long time, enjoying the sunshine, nudging each other at the sight of the many statues they passed (“oh, no, not another angel!”), and generally enjoying each others' company. It hadn't been easy at first, to get used to each others' new personality quirks, but Donna had found that the Doctor was still very much the same man that she had managed to fall in love with twice, he just had a new body and a couple of new mannerisms.  
  
When they reached the beach, they both took their shoes off, and walked hand in hand in the sand, waving at Rose before heading farther down the shoreline.  
  
“You're awfully quiet today,” the Doctor mentioned almost conversationally. “Is there something wrong?”  
  
“There's something I want to ask you about, but I'm not sure you'll like it, not after the way you acted towards Jenny,” Donna confessed, throwing her long hair over her shoulder, and wishing she had thought to bring a ponytail holder, because it was just whipped back into her face again. The Doctor paused, dropping his shoes, and fished some twine out of his pocket. “Oh, thank you,” she turned for him to fix her hair for her, and it only took a moment.  
  
“That was a long time ago,” he mused, retrieving his shoes. “You may have noticed that I'm thrilled to have Rose with us, and that I was more than a little upset when...” he drifted off, and Donna squeezed his hand more tightly:  
  
“I know,” she replied as they resumed their stroll. “But sometimes you still get that sad look in your eyes, as if it's still painful for you to look at Rose, as if you can't help but remember your other children.” The Doctor does not respond at this: even now, it's hard for him to talk about all that he lost. “Look, I don't want to dredge up the past...”  
  
“It's all right, Donna,” he assured her. “Whatever you want to ask me, it's not going to make me upset. Well... it might, but I won't be angry with you, at any rate.” He smiled at her warmly, which was good, because she still found him a little bit intimidating.  It's so odd trying to remember that three very different men are all the same man: “Ask away.” Even with this reassurance, Donna remained silent for a minute longer, staring out at the blue sea that stretched out before them.  
  
“You said a long time ago, that you only wanted a mate,” she stated at last. “And I know I said that was all I was willing to give, too, but a lot of things have changed since then.” She looked up at him, and she couldn't help it, she had to laugh. “I mean, look at us, we don't even look like our own daughter.”  
  
“And somehow she's relieved about it,” he allowed, laughing with her.  
  
“Yeah, she is,” Donna admitted. “Doctor, I need to tell you this,” she said, turning sober again. He stopped laughing, his face turning serious and nearly unreadable. “You're the best friend that I've ever had, and I don't want to lose what we have. I decided a long time ago that I want to travel with you for the rest of my life, no matter what.” She paused to center herself, relieved that she had a bypass now, otherwise she was sure that she would have fainted, she was so nervous. “But my entire life, I just wanted to get married, and have children, and I know how foolish that sounds, now that...”  
  
“Donna...” he started to cajole.  
  
“Don't, please just let me finish.” He fell silent, and she pressed on. “Rose is beautiful, but I can't exactly say her childhood was normal, and try as hard as I might, I still want those things. I can't shake it, this feeling that I'm running out of time, and I just want to know if it's possible that...your feelings could have changed.” She looked up at him, and she could tell that the Doctor was trying very hard not to laugh.  
  
“Donna Noble, are you asking me to marry you?"  
  
"I guess I am."  
  
"You don't do things by half, do you?” he asked dryly.  
  
“Not on your life,” she responded.  
  
“Donna...” he intoned. “You're my life now; you and Rose are both, and I don't regret that for one moment.”  
  
“You never wish that you were traveling with Rose Tyler instead?” she asked.  
  
“Don't ever say that,” his voice was tinged with more passion now, his gaze intense. “I made my choice a long time ago, and I chose you.”  
  
“What?” she stopped in her tracks. He smiled down at her, lifting their clasped hands to his chest, then kissing the back of her hand.  
  
“There will always be a part of me that loves Rose Tyler,” he said, “but I couldn't give her what she wanted. When I was on the Crucible, I realized that Pete's World had changed her, that we had grown apart, and then I realized that I didn't want to live without you, not ever. So I chose you.” Donna couldn't help it, she started to cry. “Don't tell me, that even after all this time, you still haven't realized how incredible you are,” he asked, brushing her tears away with his free hand. She shook her head: it was still hard for her to admit, even after all they had been through. He leaned down to kiss her, then wrapped his arms around her, stroking her hair. “What do I need to do to convince you, Donna Noble?”  
  
"I don't know," she confessed.  And then, without another word, he was kneeling, holding a small velvet box open for her to see a diamond sparkling in the sun.  She collapsed to her knees in front of him, kissing him desperately, and after he had slipped the ring onto her hand, she said:  "I guess great minds do think alike."  
  
  
  
_the Elephant Graveyard_  
  
It was a good life that they shared together, she and her Doctor, traveling across the stars with her Rosie, and then Freddie, and all of the people they encountered along the way. The drums had never troubled her, but the dreams had. Donna still dreamed, even though she slept much less than she once had, and it hadn't taken her long to realize that her dreams were prophetic. Deja vu had saved their lives on more than one occasion, and so Donna had taken to keeping a dream journal, though she rarely talked about its contents with the Doctor. There were still some things that he just didn't like to talk about.  
  
Donna was more than a little surprised to wake up one night to discover the Tardis keening. It was the only way that she could describe the sound that was passing between them as she stumbled out of bed and to the Console Room. The lighting here was more subdued than usual, the usual aqua of the time rotor having diffused into a haunting deep green-blue that was almost terrifying. Donna stroked the old girl soothingly, whispering to her:  
  
“Where is he?” she asked, having expected to find him here. The doors to the outside world opened in response, and the keening paused for a deep hum to rumble in response. Then the keening resumed, even louder, if that was possible, seeing how it was all in Donna's mind. She stepped down into the doorway.  
  
Before her stretched, as far as she could see, darkness. The light in the Tardis went dim suddenly, almost as if it had gone out, and then her eyes gradually adjusted. But Donna was forced to see in wavelengths that the human parts of her mind were still not used to, that caused her strain even with her new Time Lord consciousness. Before her stretched, as far as the eye could see, dim, twisted shapes that defied description. “What are they?” she asked, reaching her hand out towards the darkness. The Tardis rebuked her strongly, and she pulled her hand back quickly.  
  
The Tardis sighed at her, as if she was a silly child, and then thinned the barrier that protected Donna from the exterior conditions. It was cold out there, so cold that Donna fell to her knees, paralyzed. She could not even lift her arms to wrap around herself, nor huddle in a ball, only stare frozen in realization. Stretched out before her, as far as the eye could see, were Tardises that had been retired, or that had died when their Time Lord had. She didn't know how long she knelt there in the dark so heavy that it hurt, so loud that she could not scream against it, but gradually the Tardis began to shield her again and she became aware of more than the death that was laid out before her.  
  
Donna realized that she was freezing cold and that the tears on her cheeks were frozen. The heat ticked on suddenly, blasting her with hot air that felt like it was coming from a huge blow dryer, and Donna leapt back from the still open door. The lights came back up, this time shining bright white and burning her eyes, which were still adjusted for the dark. She covered her face, then realization flashed through her: “He's out there, isn't he?” The Tardis hummed in affirmation. “Is anything shielding him?” The Tardis keened again, as if to say that she had tried to stop him. Donna sighed. “I know, he'll do what he wants to do.”  
  
She returned to their room, gathering together several blankets, and tossed them over the bars next to the door, where the hot air continued to pump. She wrapped one afghan around herself, and perched on the jump seat, suddenly deadly tired. The warmth flooded through her, and she gradually fell back asleep.  
  
The dreams were so vivid: she saw a star fall out of the sky, and a madman emerge from the crater. She saw the Doctor, all in brown, lift that man up and take him away. She heard his title whispered on the wind...  _the sainted physician_. So many things flashed before her eyes, stained glass, the bowels of an alien ship, a man rising above her, his blue eyes wide in anger and his staff lifted to dispense his wrath.  
  
Donna jumped awake, the Tardis nudging at the edges of her consciousness urgently. She stood, allowing the blanket to fall to the floor, and ran to the door. She could see a light coming, slowly, stumblingly. The light in the Tardis brightened even more, and gradually the spacesuited form of her husband drew closer, until at last the Doctor tripped into the Tardis, a spare part tucked under his arm, and collapsed at her feet. She wrapped him up in blankets even before lifting him, shuddering, back upright. He sat leaning against the railing awkwardly, panting. She took off his helmet, and he lurched towards her, kissing her desperately, which was awkward around the collar of the suit. He pulled back, his hands fumbling with his zipper, but she worked it for him, and he ducked out of the suit, pulling her to him as close as he could, molding their bodies together. His shields were down, and he was mentally crying out to her, screaming in anguish. It was the most horrific thing she had ever seen, and they had seen a lot together.  
  
  
  
_Felspoon_  
  
She had never seen him sleep so long, but the gentle swaying of the mountains of Felspoon had enabled them both to drift off to sleep, even her eventually. Donna could feel the threads of time being woven about her, could see what was coming, and then she woke up and realized that he wasn't in bed with her.  
  
She found him underneath the flooring in the Console Room, a spanner in one hand and his sonic screwdriver held in between his lips. She stared down at him through the clear floor, arms crossed, and decided that she was tired of his refusal to talk to her.  
  
“What exactly were you doing last night, going out there all alone?” she yelled down at him. He jumped, causing him to drop his sonic.  
  
“There was nothing to worry you about, woman, now just leave me be!” he told her. He bent down to retrieve his dropped tool. She walked down a nearby ramp and descended to the deck below.  
  
“The Tardis was worried sick about you,” she told him emphatically. “What were we supposed to do if you had died out there?”  
  
“You would fly on to somewhere else, I imagine,” he griped. “Seeing how she obviously doesn't mind if you pilot her.”  
  
“That's a lie and you know it,” she shot back. “She never would have left without you, even if I could have convinced her to take me to stay with Rose or Fred, she would have come right back and died along with you.”  
  
“Why can't you just leave it?” he asked.  
  
“Because you scared me half to death last night!”  
  
“I'm the one who's dying, Donna, not you!” She froze for a moment, then reached out to him, yet not quite able to bring herself to actually touch him. He pulled out his stethoscope and placed it against the heart of the Tardis, listening intently.  
  
“What do you mean you're dying?” she finally demanded, her voice thick with tears. He sighed, hanging the stethoscope around his neck:  
  
“You remember the metacrisis, dear, you were there.” And suddenly it became so clear to her. The old Donna was dancing before her face again, laughing as she sent Daleks spinning. Both of her Doctors were beside her, laughing along with her, not a hint of sorrow on their faces, not a thought of burning. “That put me down a regeneration.”  
  
“No,” she gasped.  
  
“Yes,” he responded. “Oh, my love, don't you see? I finally got to have my dream! Nine hundred years is too long of a time to live, let alone one thousand! And you gave me what I could never have, a partnership between equals, a life filled with adventures, never to be experienced alone ever again. Wasn't it so fun while it lasted, and you were brilliant.” She kissed him desperately, clung to him, could not bear to even imagine a life without her Doctor. He sighed heavily, and sounded so old to her in that moment. In all the time she had known him, he had never acted old, never let anything defeat him, and now he seemed tired and half crazed to finish this project, almost as if he were afraid that he was out of time.  
  
“What are you building?” she asked him.  
  
“A battering ram,” the Doctor replied. He pulled her old watch and a pair of tweezers out of his breast pocket, and extracted the White Star from the wristwatch, then turned to the new machine that he had built and carefully eased it into place. The machine before him hummed to life, and the Tardis thrummed in relief. A boyish smile such as she had not seen in a long while spread across his face. “See?” he gloated. “Isn't that incredible?”  
  
“You're brilliant,” she quipped.  
  
“Yes I am,” he returned.  
  
  
  
_Chiswick_  
  
The next morning, he was gone. He had fallen asleep beside her in their bed, and would never wake up. They had gone to see Rosie and Fred, and for their father it turned out to be the last time. Her hair was no longer as dark as it once was, because it was going gray, but it had still been the Doctor's pride and joy. She didn't feel right about having hair that he would never run his fingers through or play with. So she braided her hair one last time, then cut the braid off, and left it in his hands before lighting the pyre on Wilf's stargazing hill. She didn't want any man to ever look at her again. She had loved him, and now she needed to be strong, she knew she did.  
  
In the Console Room, there was a message waiting for her, a holographic image of a slightly younger version of this third incarnation that they had shared together. He stood before her, smiling sadly, and it was as if he could see her, as if she were the most beautiful woman in the universe in his eyes.  
  
“Oh, Donna, my love,” he exhaled. “I was waiting for you for so long, you have no idea.” She sniffed, not wanting to cry, but not able to help it. “If you are watching this message, then you know I am dead, and my worry is that the Tardis cannot be far behind. We were part of each other, and now the time is short, because there is one more thing that needs to be done.  
  
“I have programmed the Tardis to return to the Time War, to the last few days before they wreaked destruction down upon themselves. I saw you there once, a long time ago, in your future, and now I know how you get there, if only you will pull the lever.” He paused then: “You know what you need to do to save the Earth again, my love. I believe in you, always.”  
  
And then his image had faded away. The Tardis went dark, and Donna sat there, crying, for so long that her voice felt raw. And then she straightened her hair, the pearls that had been her mother's, the white suit that she had worn to Rose's wedding, and stepped up to the console for one last time, adjusting the screen.  
  
“I need you to work with me one last time,” she said, stroking time rotor lovingly. “It's time to call my Grandad.”  
  
  
  
_Gallifrey, the final days of the Time War_  
  
She stood alone, staring at the city as it burned before her. She had heard him describe this place so many times that she had almost felt as if she had been here, but the destruction is far worse than she could have imagined.  
  
Suddenly, Rassilon is standing behind her and glaring at her for having the effrontery to find her way to a planet where humans are not even meant to step foot. Not only had she come through all of time and space to this one instant, but she had managed to travel through a time lock, something that had never been done before to his knowledge. Donna stared back at his angry face, could feel all of time and space still wrapped around her, taut and ready to spring into action, and stood before the Lord President of the Council despite her fear. It had happened before, though she could not remember it personally, and it would happen again.  
  
“Who are you, woman?” Rassilon demanded of her yet again. “Part Human, part Time Lady, you are a freak of nature, unseen before in all of time and space.”  
  
“And doesn't that just drive you crazy, time boy” she mocked softly, “to know that he could do more than you ever dreamed of?”  
  
“He?' Rassilon responded.  
  
“A Tardis only willingly dies for one reason, you know exactly what Tardis I was in.”  
  
“Well, of course, it would stand to reason that an earthworm such as yourself would be in council with none other than the Doctor,” he raved. “He's brought us to our ruin, hasn't he?”  
  
“No,” she responded sadly. “You bring yourself to your own ruin. This earth girl has seen so much more than you can imagine, I know exactly what is about to happen, because I've already dreamed it, but it doesn't matter what you do to me, I'm not telling.” Rassilon lifted his glove in anger, but then recanted, a diabolical grin spreading across his face.  
  
“Oh, no, I think it will be much more sweet if you are alive to see how very wrong you are,” he said. “You shall stand in disgrace as one of our own, will cover your face as one of the Weeping Angels, only allowed to look at the one moment that shall be your Doctor's downfall. Oh yes, you shall see all of his efforts laid waste.”  
  
  
  
She was led to a room where one woman stood alone, her face covered by her own hands. Shivers went down Donna's spine as she remembered how she first met the Doctor: the angels were still enough to give her nightmares, not because they were cruel enough to cause a physically painful death, but because they threatened to take her away from the one thing she could never live without: the Doctor. It is funny how fear can grip you years later, because at the time she had been ignorant, and now she knew better than she would ever want to, how very painful it is to be separated from the one you love.  
  
Donna turned her back on the woman before her, slowly stripped off the ivory suit that she was wearing, and pulled on the heavy red robes that had been decreed for her to wear. And then the woman's voice came like a whisper...  
  
“You have something on your back,” she said. Donna turned to stare at the woman, who was now peering at her through her fingers, as if unable to not look but afraid to drop her hands entirely.  
  
“I beg your pardon?” Donna asked, more than a little perturbed. She hastily pulled her robe on the rest of the way.  
  
“You carry a heavy burden,” the woman whispered. “You know a name that has been scattered across the stars, shouted into the Medusa Cascade, never to be written again.”  
  
“What...?”  
  
“It is the name of the Doctor,” the woman covered her face yet again. “The Oncoming Storm,” she nearly keened. “The Destroyer of Worlds.”  
  
“He is those things, oh yes, but not because he wants to be, but because he must be.”  
  
And then the woman whispered the Doctor's name. “How?” Donna asked, flabbergasted.  
  
“Because I gave it to him,” she replied. “I name thee Woman, for you are the most important woman in all of creation, thus has your name ever been, and thus will it continue to be,” and then she whispered another word in Gallifreyan, and it made even Donna shudder.  
  
“Is that who I am?” she asked. There was no more response.  
  
  
  
She stood behind Rassilon like a good little rebellious Time Lady, not because she chose to, but because he had somehow made it impossible for her not to stand like a Weeping Angel and keep to two steps behind him. She could not speak unless spoken to, she could not lower her hands, or turn her head to look around. All that she could move was her eyes, and all she could do was listen.  
  
The love of her lives was standing before her, now: she could hear his voice. It was like a long lost memory, so full of desperation and righteous anger. Her hearts and mind reached out to him, longed to give him strength in this moment of indecision, as she heard the click of the gun, but his mind was closed to her, shielded firmly. He's carrying a gun, which made something inside of her break, but she had faith in him. Together they have saved so many worlds and people that their names all blurred together along with the tears that were leaking from her eyes. There were several clicks in quick succession, the gun was pointing towards her, the  _wrong way_ , and suddenly her hands were free again, and she could lower them, which is heavenly because everything within her ached to see him one last time.  
  
The Woman stood face to face with her lover, the protector of the stars, and he recognized her. In that moment she wished they had time for shared words of affection, she wished that she could run to him and cover him, take him away from all this pain. But she couldn't. Despite the longing that was openly displayed in his gaze, they were still merely friends flirting with disaster, and this reunion must be as short as possible else all will fail. And so she looked--just looked--past him, past the Master, past it all, to the single diamond that was her own salvation, and will be again. And so he turned, and with deadly certainty in his voice commanded the Master:  
  
“Get out of my way!” A single shot was fired, an explosion occured, and so the link was broken. Rassilon was more furious than ever before, vowed to kill her Doctor, her husband, her lover, her confidant, her teacher, her rescuer, and she could not look, she could not stand to see him die, to change into another version of himself. She had been stronger when she was younger, could face the pain with him, but now... now she did not want to see his hearts break for one moment longer. She did not want to see the pain of losing Rose Tyler, or the loneliness of losing Donna Noble, on his face ever again. Now she was ready to die. He would be happy, soon, just as she was happy because of him. It was enough.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this long before the 50th anniversary special introduced us to the War Doctor or Peter Capaldi was cast as Twelve, and so i was forced to come up with my own actors as versions of the Doctor (and Donna). At the time i was trying to think of a younger version of the Woman for Donna II:  my choices were (a brunette) Emma Thompson and Bill Nighy.   
>  
> 
> The irony is that you could read this with Capaldi and Michelle Gomez in mind and it would work just as well. I mean, I even gave her a parasol.


End file.
